Perfect Pitch

Everyone has (or had) a niche in high school, whether it be as an athlete, a scholar, an actor, et cetera.  Me?  I belong in the fine arts department, specifically choral groups; that's my niche.  There's a more specific one for me though.  Every day in chorus, at least one kid asks me, "Hey, Brett, were we flat?" or "Hey Brett, what note/chord/key was that?" or "Hey Brett, sing me a G."  I'm the kid in my chorus with perfect pitch.

Perfect pitch is the ability to know what every note sounds like.  If someone were to play a note on the piano, you would know what that note is.  Along with notes, I can discern key signatures and most chords (including jazz chords).  Perfect pitch is a strange concept to me because I don't understand why most people don't have it.  It's like knowing green from red and red from purple, and everyone can do that (except color blind people).  So why can't people differentiate pitches from each other?  Well, the only explanation for this is that there are a lot more tone deaf people out there; tonality is not something we pay attention to every day.  Color, on the other hand, we see every second of every day of our lives.  This explains why it is said that only 1 in 1000 people in America have perfect pitch, and 1 in 100 people in Asian countries have perfect pitch.  Asian languages are much more pitch-oriented, so Asians are paying much more attention to tonality in their everyday lives. 

Some people say that perfect pitch is something you're born with (a lot of people think that way with my perfect pitch), while others say that it can be developed over time.  I believe in a bit of both.  Musical ability runs on my dad's side of the family, so I probably obtained some of my hearing abilities from them.  However, I don't think I was necessarily born with perfect pitch.  Back in elementary school, I played most of my instruments using sheet music, but I seemed to remember the general pitches I had to play.  During our recorder unit, I remember playing the note the bell was in (A).  I remembered that note and understood the sound of whole steps and half steps between pitches, so I guess I had relative pitch then.  By middle school, I knew what every note sounded like.  So when I say I believe in a bit of both nature and nurture, I believe more in the latter.  I was born with high musical capabilities, but only by utilizing these abilities did I truly develop perfect pitch.  Therefore, personally, I think that anyone can develop perfect pitch with time.